Join Teach Plus PA for a conversation with Dr. Camika Royal, author of Not Paved for Us: Black Educators & Public School Reform in Philadelphia. Dr. Royal will share her writing process and insights into how teachers can serve as equity advocates.

This illuminating book offers an extensive, expert analysis of a school system that bears the legacy, hallmarks, and consequences that lie at the intersection of race and education. Dr. Royal interrogates the history of education and educational reforms, recounting city, state, and federal interventions. She covers SDP’s connections with the Common School Movement and the advent of the Philadelphia Freedom Schools, and she addresses federal policy shifts, from school desegregation to the No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Acts. Her survey provides sociopolitical context and rich groundwork for a nuanced examination of why many large urban districts struggle to implement reforms with fidelity and in ways that advance Black students academically and holistically.